Prompt: Video
by Ngoc Chau
Summary: Her head tilted from side to side as though she was observing. The corners of her lips struggled to turn up, was she trying to smile? There was something about her face, something that he found endearing and rather wonderful. Mayuri x Nemu, if you squint


**Ngoc Chau does not own Bleach.**

**I don't know what brought this on, I guess I just felt the urge to write something sort of cute-sy. I hope you enjoy it. Please read and review. **

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><p><strong>Prompt: Video<strong>

Mayuri leaned back in his chair, his form illuminated by the light of the computer screen. He had stumbled on some file that had been saved in the desktop and was wondering why it should be there: this little video file. Was it perhaps something incriminating or useful in blackmailing one of the other high-ranking shinigami.  
>The file was labelled with a date and two brief words: First footage.<p>

He clicked on it, a black box popped up and began to load the video file. In the first few seconds, he instantly recognized the occasion for the video. He had filmed it a few months after Nemu's birth when she began to show some mature intelligence; no longer mute, no longer dumb, basically functional like any child. And like a child she was.  
>The screen showed Nemu, looking forever young as she always did, though her hair was loose and cloaked her back. Then, instead of the uniform she sported, he had her wear the white smocks the other scientists always did when inside the Twelfth Division Labs.<p>

The audio was not good, he had to be honest; he remembered it was an amateur camera made in his youth. Slight static could be heard as his footsteps were. His voice was not as harsh then as it was now, his speech was smoother. "Nemu. Nemu, Look up." The camera bumped.

Nemu looked up immediately. There was such a difference to Nemu decades ago compared to her currently. For one thing, her eyes: they were not so wide with curiosity as they had been, instead over the years they had become tired and a little melancholy. Her expression had been one of ignorance, but darling(though he would never in a million years say that out loud); luckily however her expression, to him, had improved to be one that was well-versed and timid. She stood up, childishly stumbling over her long legs(the smock had acted as some oversized dress) and erecting herself straight to bend quite exaggeratedly.  
>"Mayu'i-sama." she greeted to him, her eyes closed and her head bowed in reverence. The voice was that of a child, not a young woman. Her tongue had slipped, her skills in speaking were not yet refined, but that was a matter that he had remedied the following week.<p>

"_Ma_-yuri. Mayu-_ri_." he enunciated for her, as he had held the camera.

Watching, he laughed inwardly at how attentive he had been to Nemu in her early days. Nowadays, he supposed that if he had another child he would have Nemu raise her: let her interact earlier than what he had done for Nemu before, and possibly take her out of the tank a little later. She looked up, the camera zoomed into her face, and bowed once again. "Mayuri-sama."

The camera shook slightly, as though it was giving her a nod itself. "Good girl." More strange sounds as the camera moved with him to the small desk where Nemu had preoccupied herself before he came in. The desk was bare, save for a book that rested open page upon the surface and a pen. The camera turned to have a right-side up of what she had had in front of her, her knee could be seen in the corner of the screen.  
>"What have you done today?" he asked.<p>

Her response was to point to the book before her.

The camera bumped once more. "Speak up! I didn't make you into a mute!" he chastised her. His white hand with blue nails appeared in the corner and gave her knee a little whack. The camera moved to her face and zoomed out again. Her voice was small and quiet. How long ago, he wondered as he listened and watched, was it that Nemu ceased to speak like a little girl.

She pulled out a small notebook under the table and opened it up to the camera its contents. Lines upon lines of well-written kanji were etched inside. The characters were ridiculously simple, but he mentally beamed that she had some good penmanship back in those days. "I finished my writing. And I read the book."  
>She returned the notebook to its spot under the table and gestured to the open book. He leaned forward slightly in his chair, imagining what sort of book he had given her to read then. There were no pictures and so he supposed that it was a little older for her. He caught brief words like flower, tree, and butterfly.<p>

The camera bumped and moved again once more, a soft thud was heard. Suddenly, there was an announcement that just tore through his ears. The shoddy audio on the file made it worse. He winced and lowered down the volume slightly in mid word. "Kurotsuchi-taicho is needed in Lab 9."

His voice was heard again, he then recognized the inception of the harshness that his voice would become after centuries of yelling at his subordinates and lab technicians. "Can't they survive without me for a few minutes?"  
>There was a shift, the view was shaking. The camera was placed at some odd angle in that it almost had a view up her clothes. What had he been thinking then, he wondered in a humour. He continued watching the video intently. "Nemu. Just sit there, don't touch anything. Do you understand me?"<p>

She nodded. "Yes, Mayuri-sama. I stay still. I don't touch." There was a period of stillness, the sound of a door slamming was heard. Nemu stayed motionless. He was about to congratulate himself on how he had input obedience in her so early in life until he saw her move from her seat.

The little ingénue got down on all fours, her face close to the camera screen. He had to remind himself that this was something from years and years ago, that she was not looking directly at him. Her head tilted from side to side as though she was observing. The corners of her lips struggled to turn up, was she trying to smile? There was something about her face, something that he found endearing and rather wonderful. He sighed as he leaned back. The Nemu there continued to stare, her eyes probing about.

Was this why he had kept this clip of his daughter?

The interest was fleeting but he could not tear his eyes away from the image: Nemu looking untouched and pure. What had he done to her these years to take away that shine in her eyes? What I had to, to take care of her, came the answer from the back of his mind. There was more, but he head the door behind him open and closed the file immediately.

Nemu walked in, her braid swaying behind her and a tray of tea and a solitary cup in her hands. Her steps were even and her head did not bump and down as she walked, but stayed at the same level. Every step of hers, he could see, was measured and exact. She came close to him, nodding her head slightly. Her tone was even, neutral, quiet. Her lids half-cloaked her eyes. The blue shone on her pale skin.  
>"Mayuri-sama." she greeted him.<p>

A wisp of smoke emitted from the tea, not a drop had been spilled in bringing it to him. His eyes looked up from the tea before him.

"Nemu." he greeted in return, his voice was indifferent, perhaps a little tired to his ears.

She moved the tray closer to him. "Your tea, sir."

He could very well see that, but did not call her dumb for pointing out the obvious as his mouth was already full from taking a wagashi from the plate upon the tray and popping it quickly into his mouth, then drinking down some tea with it. But he also did not thank her. She left the plate of sweets on a counter an arm's reach away from him and the tea pot sat behind it. He took another sip of his tea. It was bitter on his tongue.

Nemu held the tray against her body, her arms stretched downwards. "Will you need anything else, Mayuri-sama?" she asked. She sounded a little tired too.

He placed his cup of tea on the opposite counter, again, an arm's reach away. He opened up the files he had been working on and over-seeing, his tapping was continuous and he did not look at her. "I need my pills. This work is going to give me an all-nighter." This was an order.

"Yes, sir." she replied.

Without warning, she placed the bottle of pills next to his tea cup. He raised a non-existent eyebrow. So, she had been prepared…

He did not compliment her on it, but nodded his head to her. She asked him if he needed anything else. He replied that he didn't and she could go to bed now. He had nothing else planned for her.

Next, the hesitance startled him more than the action itself. Her hand touched his shoulder. "Goodnight, Mayuri-sama." she spoke in a cross between a whisper and a sigh.  
>She left almost immediately.<p>

_Good night, Nemu_. He held the words in his throat.

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><p><strong>So, what did you think?<strong>

**For those wondering, I didn't specify whether Nemu was built like a little girl or like she is now because I wanted to leave it up to the reader's imagination. There is a possibility that Mayuri made her as a little girl(say, a toddler or so) because when you look at his bankai and his zanpakuto spirit, you see a little boy. There was also that zanpakuto special at the end of the episodes during that arc where after Hitsugaya introduced Mayuri's zanpakuto, he gave him a poisoned apple-flavoured lollipop as a reward for a 'job well-done'. To which Hitsugaya shouted at him to not treat him like a child. And there was the Turning Back the Pendulum arc where we see how well Mayuri tolerated a child-Akon(I say tolerated because their interaction was very brief from what the viewers watched.**  
><strong>But then again, he could've had Nemu as a young woman already because we know that he's not a patient man with people and that in one fanfic of mine, I had pointed out that her growth was instantaneous from foeutus, to child, to woman.<strong>

**So it's up to you, Reader, to imagine if she has the body of a child in the video clip or that of a young woman's.**


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